Vintage

This player is illustrative of the 'bridge' between early first- and second-generation machines, employing a non-oversampled 16-bit DAC – L/R multiplexed at 88.2kHz – in a player that has a more compact form factor. The 11.3µsec interchannel delay and post-ringing caused by the sample-and-hold and analogue filtering, respectively [see pic p121], are seen in the time domain impulse as is the ±0.2dB dip/peak in response prior to the –0.75dB/20kHz roll-off [Graph 2]. Although its stopband rejection is a fairly modest 14dB (24.1kHz re. 20kHz) the impact of the filter bites more effectively >30kHz so that HF distortion harmonics are also suppressed. This is the reason why THD at 20kHz is ~15dB lower than through the midrange at signal levels below –20dBFs [see Graph 1, below].

At the player's 1.79V peak output, delivered via a ~925ohm source impedance (increasing to 1.4kohm/25Hz), the A-wtd S/N ratio is a ~16-bit 95.7dB while distortion ranges from 0.0035-0.015% (20Hz-20kHz), falling to as low as ~0.001% over the top 30dB of its dynamic range. Low-level linearity is rather less than 16-bits, however, with the DAC's compressive trend showing signals at –90dBFs appearing some 4.5dB higher in amplitude (and a poorer +15dB re. –90dBFs at 20kHz). There's also a substantial +5000ppm clock error in this sample not, as I first thought, caused by Sanyo employing a ceramic resonator instead of a crystal clock. Either way, it's still unlikely to be audible despite the +0.5% increase in pitch. Jitter is not linked to absolute clock accuracy (despite what you might read about aftermarket 'clock upgrades') and so the CP 08 shows up with some ~650psec of data-induced sidebands – a figure that's not atypical of the era or technology. PM